Heavy Metal Loadings in Residential Yards in Tronoh, Perak.

Heavy metals occur naturally in earth and they are essential to the human body in trace
amount. In high doses, they exert the toxic effect and will be harmful to human health.
The excess concentration of heavy metals can eventually lead to poisoning and can be
fatal. There are various sources of heavy metals and they can be transported to
residential yards in many ways. One of them is through the atmosphere. Heavy metal
will deposit eventually be into the soil and may accumulate. Soil pollution can
sometimes enriched trace metal contents in airborne particles originate from soils and
the polluted air will be inhaled by human. Most people do not realize that air contains
lots of heavy metals due to human activities, vehicle emissions and other sources. These
heavy metals can harm human being by entering human body via inhalation, ingestion
and skin absorption. However, the level of awareness among the general public
regarding soil pollution with heavy metal is still low. This report reflects the research
done and also the basic understanding of the topic which is: Heavy Metal Loadings in
Residential Yards in Tronob, Perak. The main objective of this research is to measure
the concentration of Pb, Zn and Cd in residential estates within Tronoh and to compare
the level of heavy metal in the residential estates with the rural area. The rural area with
low volume of traffic and negligible industry that has been chosen for this project is
Bota which is located next to Tronoh. In this study, three residential yards were chosen
as the sampling locations. Two sampling locations are within Tronoh and one is in Bota.
For each sampling location, two random points been chosen and two samples from each
point were taken at different depth; the top soil (0-8cm) and the bottom soil (9-16cm).
The samples were sent to the laboratory for the analysis using Atomic Absorption
Spectroscopy (AAS). From the findings, heavy metal concentration is consider low and
is still in acceptable range. The highest metal concentration is Pb in Taman Universiti
with the concentration of 512.0 I mg/kg and the lowest is Cd in Bota with the
concentration of 5.2 mglkg. Cd concentration is very low for all sampling locations since
the locations are away from any industry activities.